While it's true that over fifty American submarines, though missing, are still considered to be on patrol it goes without saying that their crew members are also considered to be at duty. Their whereabouts unknown and their deviations from their original orders unspoken of among the general public.
They called it Project Methuselah, a way to make humans live longer within extreme conditions - the ocean being their main focus. With a crew of a hundred on average, multiplied by roughly fifty, they had a decent enough sample size in nearly identical circumstances.
The primary method of intake for the "super serum"( as it was colloquially known) had to be something that would survive in the depths of the oceans. If the project was successful enough then the crews would move outside of containment and begin to build beyond all human capabilities of the time.
They chose for it to be an implant that could synthesise the serum from the subject's own blood and release it at a steady pace. It was practically perfect on paper and on mice but when it was put into practice with the crews of over fifty submarines, things went awry very fast.
In most cases the implants caused a kind of toxic shock within the subject's body as their antibodies began to target their blood cells at an alarmingly fast rate. This happened with the majority of subjects, almost seven in ten to be precise. The pre-planned solution was to terminate the crews once they had achieved a 100% fatality rate.
Thus the fate of most missing submarines is solved, though not every crew suffered the extreme reactions. Almost twenty crews are still out there, unaging and unfeeding, having outgrown these functions after the first week of the synthesised serum flowing through them like the sea water that now filled their lungs so easily.
Their mission has become simpler as the years have progressed, from fighting in the war to building a shelter to forming a society at the heart of the ocean to just living each day in relative peace. They are able to study the sea like no others before them and will continue to do so until their implants wear out.
It isn't known what will happen to them by then - it could be hundreds of years from now or mere weeks. They might continue to thrive with the serum still self generating as a natural part of their new bodies. They might drown instead. By that point will they even be recognisable as humans?
They called it Project Methuselah, a way to make humans live longer within extreme conditions - the ocean being their main focus. With a crew of a hundred on average, multiplied by roughly fifty, they had a decent enough sample size in nearly identical circumstances.
The primary method of intake for the "super serum"( as it was colloquially known) had to be something that would survive in the depths of the oceans. If the project was successful enough then the crews would move outside of containment and begin to build beyond all human capabilities of the time.
They chose for it to be an implant that could synthesise the serum from the subject's own blood and release it at a steady pace. It was practically perfect on paper and on mice but when it was put into practice with the crews of over fifty submarines, things went awry very fast.
In most cases the implants caused a kind of toxic shock within the subject's body as their antibodies began to target their blood cells at an alarmingly fast rate. This happened with the majority of subjects, almost seven in ten to be precise. The pre-planned solution was to terminate the crews once they had achieved a 100% fatality rate.
Thus the fate of most missing submarines is solved, though not every crew suffered the extreme reactions. Almost twenty crews are still out there, unaging and unfeeding, having outgrown these functions after the first week of the synthesised serum flowing through them like the sea water that now filled their lungs so easily.
Their mission has become simpler as the years have progressed, from fighting in the war to building a shelter to forming a society at the heart of the ocean to just living each day in relative peace. They are able to study the sea like no others before them and will continue to do so until their implants wear out.
It isn't known what will happen to them by then - it could be hundreds of years from now or mere weeks. They might continue to thrive with the serum still self generating as a natural part of their new bodies. They might drown instead. By that point will they even be recognisable as humans?
No comments:
Post a Comment